Of all the arts in America, the theatre has perhaps the largest number of participant organizations. There are some fifteen thousand non-professional and educational theatres in the United States. The present study attempts to investigate the brief history of one of those, the Academy Festival Theatre Company. Considered are data from numerous newspaper articles and reviews, as well as letters and memos written between Barat College of Lake Forest, Illinois, and the Academy Festival Theatre Company, all concerning financial and management issues. Selected letters from patrons bear upon certain Academy Festival Theatre productions. Results from this study demonstrated that there was not one problem which caused the Academy Festival Theatre's closing, but rather many individual issues, each of which contributed in its own way to the demise of the Academy Theatre. The administrative and management weaknesses of the three producers were foremost. The wide variety of plays offered by the Academy, resulting in an unfocused appeal to subscribers, was next in significance.

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iii, [69] pages

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eng

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Northern Illinois University

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